Biography

Flemish painter and tapestry designer. He was initially a pupil of Caspar van den Hoecke (d. 1648). After a period in Italy, sometime after 1618, he joined the workshop of Peter Paul Rubens. He is one of the few artists whose collaboration with Rubens is documented. He is mentioned several times between 1625 and 1628, for example in 1625, when he was involved in the installation of some of the 44 decorative panels ('the Medici Cycle') commissioned from Rubens in 1622 by Marie de' Medici for the Palais de Luxembourg in Paris. He may also have collaborated in painting some of the panels. In 1628 he became a Master in the Antwerp Guild of St Luke. Immediately afterwards he left for Paris, where he acquired a considerable reputation, not only as a painter but also as a print publisher. In 1648 he was one of the founders of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture. After 1649 various Flemish archives mention him again: first in Brussels (until c. 1655) and then in Antwerp, where he settled.